Gender and community security

"community security is a people-centred approach to tackling issues causing insecurity, whether they emerge from peace, security or development deficits. It explicitly aims to improve the relationships between and the behaviours of communities, authorities and institutions by providing opportunities for people to identify their security concerns, and to plan and implement collective responses. The gendered nature of insecurity, and therefore of efforts to promote security and build peace, is now widely recognised, including through international policy frameworks such as the Beijing Platform for Action, eight UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security, and General Recommendation 30 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Promoting gendersensitive approaches to security provision has become part of the peacebuilding canon, although it is still far from being implemented consistently. This report explores the role of gender in community security programmes and looks at what has and has not worked in a range of contexts – Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, South Sudan and Yemen. It addresses three core questions, which correspond to its three chapters"